


Not For A Second

by Rachel500



Series: Part of the Journey is the End [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-02-21 17:30:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18707035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rachel500/pseuds/Rachel500
Summary: Clint took his eyes off his family for a second





	Not For A Second

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for Avengers Endgame. 
> 
> Content warning of character deaths, loss of children, grief, and violence.

The alarm goes off.

Clint wakes up, rolls over and slaps it off.  He rolls back over, snuggles up to his wife and kisses her bare shoulder where the oversize t-shirt she has worn to bed has slipped down.

Laura turns and cuddles into him. 

They spend a couple of minutes just holding each other.  It’s a small intimacy which Clint cherishes.  Waking each morning with his wife, the warmth of two tangled bodies pressed together under bedsheets, and the comfort of knowing the shape and the touch of each other.

It scares him sometimes to think how close he came to losing it because of his own stupidity.  Laura had been rightly angry at Clint’s decision to break the law when he’d ran off to support Captain America.  Once he’d been allowed by the government to serve out his house arrest at the farm, Clint had slept on the couch for a month.

They trade lazy kisses back and forth.   

“We should get up,” Laura notes after a while.

Clint hums.  He knows she’s right.  The kids will be up soon.

“Yeah,” Clint kisses her again.  He rolls away and sits on the edge of the bed, reaching for the t-shirt he had discarded when he’d climbed under the covers.  He’s always too hot in the middle of the night.  “What’s the plan for today?”

Laura belted her robe and tugged her hair out of the back.  “I was thinking a picnic for lunch?  Hotdogs?”

“Sounds good,” Clint says, standing up, “Lila’s been after another archery lesson.”

They both quickly make use of the facilities.  The small bath they’d put in next to their own room has been a godsend with two teenagers in the house.

Laura kisses Clint as she turns on the shower.  “Can you get breakfast started?”

“On it,” Clint says.  He stretches and grimaces at the feel of the anklet.  He’s lucky he reminds himself. 

When he and Scott had shown up at the Compound to turn themselves in, he’d half-expected Tony to throw them to the wolves, but the billionaire had worked out a deal for them with the government.

Clint feels another swell of guilt.  He’d been an idiot.  When Steve had called, he hadn’t checked in with Tony, hadn’t actually taken a moment to read the Accords himself.  

God, he’d been so angry at Tony and Natasha.    

He’d just accepted Steve’s version of the truth and…when Steve had confessed all after breaking them out of the Raft, Clint had worked out exactly how much he had messed up.

He shakes his head as he skips down the stairs.

“You know what they say about assume,” he murmurs under his breath, “makes an ass out of you.”

Clint shakes the thoughts away.  He can’t undo the past.  He still doesn’t like the Accords and he’s never going to agree with them; still agrees with Steve on that.  But he’d made his own apologies to Tony for the fight and hadn’t been surprised when Tony had reciprocated with apologies of his own. 

He knows one of the apologies was getting the government to agree to keep Clint on house arrest at the farm.  It’s very restrictive – much more restrictive than the situation he had thought he was rescuing Wanda from – but it means he’s home with his family and that’s all Clint cares about.  

He glances across at the calendar up on the wall.  Only another couple of months and he’ll be free of the anklet.  He frowns.  He knows Scott’s end date was the week before sometime.   One of the restrictions has been that they cannot contact each other so Clint really has no idea how Scott is doing.

He wouldn’t have an idea about how anyone is doing if it wasn’t for Tony’s occasional calls and Natasha. 

Somehow, Nat always manages to visit them despite being on the run.  They’d seen her last at Christmas.

“Morning, Dad,” Lila sneaks into the kitchen and glomps herself onto his back. 

“Morning to you too, honey,” Clint squirms around and kisses the top of her head.  “Can you get the table set?”

He puts out a skillet and takes out the ingredients for pancakes.  He has a limited repertoire in the kitchen, but he can make a mean breakfast and a good stew.  Maybe, he thinks, he’ll do a stew that evening, and give Laura a break from the cooking.

Cooper slinks into the kitchen and drops into a chair with a yawn.  Clint is half-surprised to see him up; Coop’s in the classic teenage stage of sleeping all day if he’s not roused from his bed.

“You OK, champ?” asks Clint, setting the orange juice beside him.

Cooper almost ignores the glass but after a quick look from Clint, he pours out the juice rather than swigging it from the bottle.  “Ted called.  Ellie broke up with him.”

“You want to invite him over?” asks Clint.

Cooper shakes his head.  “His Mom won’t let him.”

Clint feels his heart sink a little.  He and Cooper went through a rough patch when Clint left to help Steve.  Missing the water-skiing was part of it; getting arrested very publicly was another; actually breaking the law was something else.  Now Cooper has friends who don’t come over anymore, who are not allowed to come over to the farm anymore, and that’s on Clint.

Nate barrels in with Laura on his heels.  Their youngest is half-dressed.  Clint relinquishes the stove to Laura, wrestles Nate into his pants, and heads up to the bathroom to get ready for the day.

The morning slips away in the normality of family life.  There are chores to do for the farm and the house.  The kids complain but they’re good kids and they work their way through the list of feeding and grooming animals; mucking out stables, pig-pens and chicken coops.

The reward is the picnic lunch.

“Archery’s so lame,” mutters Cooper as Clint sets up the target.

“It is not lame,” Lila says furiously.

Clint shrugs.  “It’s not everybody’s thing,” he says mildly.  He nods at Cooper.  “Nate wants to play ball.”

Cooper rolls his eyes, but he loves his little brother and he grabs the baseball gloves and ball before he heads down to the field where Nate is running around.

Clint focuses on the lesson with Lila.  He takes her through it a couple of times, not rushing even though he’s aware that Laura is setting up lunch on their picnic table.  When Lila’s arrow hits the bullseye, he’s so proud of her he could burst.

He sends her to collect the arrow.  There’s a heaviness to the air and Clint hopes that it isn’t going to rain. 

Laura calls them for lunch.  Clint calls back.  He looks around for Lila. 

She’s gone.

He frowns.

He’d taken his eyes off her for like a second.

She was just…

Did she go to the bathroom or…why wouldn’t she have said?

He calls out for her, makes a cursory search.

Probably bathroom. 

He turns back to tell Laura they’ll be a minute and…

Laura’s not there.

The boys are not there.

Where have they gone? 

Clint feels his heart begin to pound as he runs down to the paddock.  He calls out frantically to them. 

People don’t disappear.

Confusion and panic have him panting as he runs to the table.

He checks under it.  It’s stupid but it’s all he’s got.

“Please, please, please,” he begs under his breath as he whirls around from side to side, scanning the area for any sign…

They’re just playing some kind of trick on him.

That’s all this is.

It’s impossible for them just to have disappeared.

Impossible.

Impossible like magic and aliens and monsters…

People just don’t disappear unless something has caused them to disappear.

Clint can’t quite catch his breath.  He runs back up to the house and switches the television on. 

There’s nothing. 

It’s like the signal is out.  He switches it off and heads for the old radio.  The airwaves crackle and there’s nothing again.

Clint reaches for the laptop and switches it on.  He’s desperately waiting for it to boot up when the phone rings.

He immediately snags it.  “Hello?”

“Clint,” Natasha’s voice has him closing his eyes, partially in relief and partially in gratitude that maybe he will find out what’s happened.

He cuts in and tells her about losing Laura, the kids; how he can’t find them.  She stops him and breaks the news of what has happened.

It’s another alien invasion.

New York had gotten hit again and Tony’s gone.

There’s been a battle in Wakanda, and some bastard has made people disappear. 

He presses his fingers across the bridge of his nose.  He can get the anklet off easy enough.  He just hasn’t been motivated to try but he can do it.  “I’ll…I’ll come to you,” he says, “I’ll just need to…”

Natasha tells him to stay put; she doesn’t want him arrested again.  He thinks about what it did to Laura and the kids the last time and subsides.  He can trust Natasha, _the team_ , to fix this.  And truthfully how much use would he be?  Sure, he’s kept fit and he always practices his shooting, but he’s been nothing but a farmer for the last two years.  He tells her to stay safe and puts the phone down.

Clint wanders back outside.

It’s quiet. 

Too quiet.

“Screw it,” he says.

Maybe it’s useless but he’ll search every inch of the farm anyway.

o-O-o

The phone rings.

Clint isn’t sleeping.  He’s stretched out on the den sofa, staring up at the ceiling, waiting for the night to slip away and for a new day to get started.

It’s been twenty-two – no, it’s after midnight almost dawn so…twenty-three days.

Twenty-three days.

Twenty-three lonely days stuck on the farm.

God, his misses his family.

There’s been an occasional visitor; Jerry Dawson stops by – his wife of fifty years had been one of the Vanished – and helps with the chores.  The deputy sheriff stops by every day since she’s worked out Clint has a line on what is happening thanks to Natasha’s updates.

Which is why as he reaches out and picks up the ringing phone from the coffee table, he knows it’s Natasha without even having to look at the picture. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Natasha says, “we’ve got Tony back.”

Clint moves swiftly to a sitting position.  “He came back from the Snap?” His heart pounds with hope.

“No, he wasn’t Vanished,” Natasha corrects him, “he ended up in space.  He was on his way back and…Carol Danvers, the enhanced who Fury was paging, she went to get him.”

“So, he’s back,” Clint repeats.  He brushes a hand over his hair.  It’s good Tony is back.  He can’t deny that he feels a little bit better knowing Tony’s genius is going to be focused on fixing this.

“He’s in bad shape, Clint,” Natasha’s voice trembles.

Clint sucks in a breath.  “How bad?”

“Bad,” Natasha says, “he was without food and water for a while.”

“But he’ll be OK, right?” asks Clint, concerned for Tony despite his nagging omnipresent worry for his own family.

Natasha sighs.  “We think so; he collapsed after yelling at Steve.”

Clint winces; that doesn’t sound good.

“I can’t believe with everything that’s happened he’s still pissed at him,” Natasha comments.

“Can you really blame him?” asks Clint.  “Look, I love Cap but if he’d lied to me like he lied to Tony?”  He sighs.  “I’d be pissed at him.”

 _He’s_ a little pissed at Steve. 

Clint’s had two long years to think about what went down.  He’s come to several uncomfortable conclusions including that Steve in keeping Tony at a distance because of the Barnes situation had subtly led the others to do the same; had created a wedge in the team for no reason other than Steve’s own fears. 

“Honestly, Tony should be pissed at all of us,” Clint says following his thought through.  “He warned us we were going to be facing another alien attack and we ignored him.”

Natasha is silent for a long moment.  “We have a lead on Thanos.”

The change of topic isn’t surprising since Natasha hates to admit it when she makes a mistake but the news makes Clint’s heart skip a beat.  They have a lead on the guy who did this.

“We’re prepping for the mission now,” Natasha says.  “We have to go into space too since Thanos used the stones again on another planet.”

“I can…”  Clint begins.

“Stay where you are,” Natasha states firmly, “if we can get them back, Bruce speculates that they’ll come back where they were when Thanos did the original Snap.  We’ll need verification so you’ll be my first call when we get back in range.” 

Clint swallows but he nods.  He wants to go on the mission but staying and making sure his family are OK?  That’s more important.  “Alright,” he says, “but tell Steve I expect him to bring you back from space without a scratch.”

“I’ll see you on the other side,” Natasha says and closes the call.

Clint gets up.  He showers, dresses and switches on the coffee pot.  Clint slurps down the first cup of coffee, ignores the idea of breakfast and heads out to keep himself busy with the usual chores. 

It’s hard work on his own to keep on top of everything, even if he’s missing at least four hens, two pigs and a horse – and Fury’s strange old cat who has been living in the barn.  But he’s glad of the mindless physicality of it; it keeps him from dwelling too much on what’s happened.  He thinks he may go crazy if he dwells. 

The day slips by. 

It’s almost the end of the day when he hears a sound, an engine.  He races to the window.  There’s a space ship above his house.  Maybe they’d decided they needed him, after all? 

He doesn’t bother with a coat.  He hurries outside, running down to the ship.

Natasha exits and Steve follows.

Clint slows.  He staggers to a stop as he registers their faces; their body language.

And he knows.

He knows without them saying a word.

It’s not the beginning of their mission.

It’s the end.

And Clint’s family is still gone.

They’re gone.

No.

His babies. 

His wife.

They’re gone.

They’re gone and they’re not coming back.

He falls to his knees.

o-O-o

It feels like a blink of an eye.

It feels like an eternity.

Clint lives in a twilight world where nothing makes sense.

He thinks he yells at Steve.

He knows he yells at the television, at the news reports which describe the increasing acts of violence, of terror, of crime.

Criminals.

Terrorists.

Serial killers.

They got to live but not his kids; not his wife.

It’s bullshit.

Bullshit.

Natasha bullies him into getting up every day.  He does chores.  He sees Laura every time he turns around; he thinks he hears his kids’ voices on the wind outside.  There are memories in every corner, every part of the farm.

It hurts.

One day he wakes up early and for the first time his mind feels clear, sharp.  The fog of grief he’s been living in seems a little bit more bearable.  he stares at Natasha curled up at his back.  She’s been with him, looking after him the whole time.  He owes her.

He cooks dinner for a change and they end up spending the evening talking about the kids and Laura.  They even pull out the photo albums.  Later Natasha breaks and he holds her while she grieves.  He’s forgotten in his own grief that she loved them too.

He tells her he can’t stay. He can’t stay at the farm anymore, surrounded by his memories of the family he has lost.  It hurts too much.

Natasha suggests the Avengers Compound.

Clint doesn’t know if he’s ready for that.  To return to being an Avenger.  But what else should he do?  He can’t stay and he has nowhere else to go.

o-O-o

Clint ends up driving Natasha to the Stark mansion for the christening ceremony of Stark’s kid.

Tony as a Dad.

Clint shakes his head.  Tony’s come a long way from the playboy billionaire he was when Natasha profiled him.  Life has changed a lot for all of them.  Tony has transformed into a family man and Clint?  Clint has no idea who he is anymore.

He remembers reading about some guy who had gone on a vengeance spree after the death of his wife and his kids, and there are days when he’s tempted to chuck everything and go that route, especially when he hears of another criminal, another bad guy who got to live when his kid didn’t, going free.  It’s only Natasha who tethers Clint to the shattered remains of Hawkeye; who keeps him turning up to fight as an Avenger.

He breathes in as they exit the car; steels himself.  He hadn’t wanted to come but Natasha has been insistent.  Tony’s all but retreated on a personal level from the Avengers Initiative even if his money and tech keeps them going.   Clint’s had very little interaction with Tony himself, mainly when Tony drops by at strange random moments to give Clint arrows. 

Clint’s not complaining.  He prefers the arrows to Steve’s attempts to be positive as much as he knows Steve means well.  He thinks he might be avoiding Steve more than Tony these days.  Or maybe not.  Tony and Steve don’t talk and Steve isn’t in attendance at the christening; Clint’s not sure if he was even invited.

They’re only a handful of people who are invited and they gather in the garden to witness the baptism and christening.  Nobody is surprised when Rhodes is made godfather, but Clint’s a little surprised when Happy is named as the other godparent and there is no godmother. 

Natasha doesn’t seem to mind being overlooked though and he leaves her cooing over the baby and takes a walk.

The sight of little Morgan Stark…it reminds him of his own children; of how perfect they’d been as babies…how precious.

He ends up in the bathroom, trying to stave off the urge to cry.  He washes his face and eases out.  He hears the murmur of Tony down the corridor and goes to investigate.

He finds him in a surprisingly modest nursery wrestling his young daughter into a onesie.  Clint leans against the doorway and watches, amused.

“You know what,” Tony says, frustration leaking out into every word, “I’m making you a suit.  This onesie…”

Clint chuckles as Morgan evades Tony’s attempt to get her arm into the clothing.

“…is just not cutting it.” Tony glances over at Clint.  “Hey.”

“Hey,” Clint replies.

Tony gestures at the baby in front of him.  “You know how to operate one of these, right?”

Clint winces but he knows Tony’s blunt social awkwardness is who he is, and in some ways he kind of appreciates Tony not dancing around his loss.

“Can you, uh…?”  Tony sends him a beseeching look.

Clint would like to run in the opposite direction, but he pushes off the doorjamb and heads into the room.  He carefully shows Tony how to gently grasp and guide the baby’s arms into the onesie. 

Tony carefully picks his daughter up.  He sighs heavily.  “Shouldn’t I have this after two months?  I mean two months is…it’s a long enough time to work out how to put a onesie on her.  I just…I have no idea what I’m doing.”

“Nobody does,” Clint says, “we all make it up as we go along.  Any parent who says different is lying.”

Tony cradles his daughter close and the unhappy expression he was wearing fades into awe as he looks down at her.  “Thanks for the assist, Legolas.”

Clint nods.  “She’s beautiful, Tony.”  He swallows hard against the rush of emotion.  “Don’t take your eyes off her, Tony.  Not even for a second.  Just…” his voice cuts out. 

“Clint…” Tony murmurs, compassion in his warm brown eyes.

Clint takes a breath and tries to shrug away his pain, his grief.  “Sorry, I’ve got to go.”

The next day there are new arrows waiting for him on the practice range.

o-O-o

When Clint loses it, he loses it. 

He’s not sure what happens.  He’s not sure why after more than a year of surviving after the Snap, of months of fighting as Hawkeye, why he finally breaks.

He simply lets his arrow fly and he takes out the trash that calls himself Thunderball. 

There’s a moment of satisfaction; of knowing one of the bad guys is gone. 

Of course, the others don’t see it that way.  He endures the disappointed look from War Machine, rails against the patronising lecture from Captain America, and is comforted by Natasha’s continuing lack of judgement. 

But he knows he can’t stay an Avenger.

That’s not who he is anymore.

He leaves in the middle of the night. 

He takes a small duffle of belongings, and his bow and arrows.  He drives into New York, parks on a random street, and walks to the bus station. 

He disappears.  

Clint had worked for SHIELD, for Army Intelligence before that.  He knows how to disappear.  There are plans and provisions he’s always had in place to do that exact thing.  It’s not even difficult in the semi-post-apocalyptic world post the Snap. 

He meanders for the first week in middle America.  Hitch-hikes.  Takes short bus trips from one cowpoke town to another.  Jumps the train tracks.

Then he goes back to somewhere they won’t look for him: New York. 

He heads to the more desolate part of the city where nobody cares who anybody is; where there is space to be another faceless guy.

He stares at the katana he’d retrieved from its hiding place every day.  The katana had belonged to Ronin; the undercover identity he’d worn to bring down warlords and criminals at the behest of the government.

Ronin hasn’t existed for years; his katana has been silent since Clint joined SHIELD.  He hasn’t used the sword for years; he begins to practice.  He does the exercises he’d first learned in the circus under the watchful eye of the Swordsman.

A month after he leaves the Avengers, Clint rents a bedsit in Bed-Stuy.  Twenty-four hours later, he realises he’s ended up in a neighbourhood overrun by the Russian Mafia. 

He tries to ignore it.  But then he sees them kidnap a young socialite doing work with the homeless and standing up to the Mafia muscle; she reminds him of Lila.

There’s a very bloody and decisive confrontation between the Russians and the katana. 

“Who are you?” the Mob boss asks before Clint strikes him down.

Clint doesn’t know; he doesn’t feel like Clint Barton, husband and father; he can’t be Hawkeye, the Avenger, who stays on the side of the law.  He has no hope, no future.

All he does know is that the katana feels like a better fit now; Ronin’s ruthlessness an outlet for his anger; Ronin’s mercenary ways more suited to all of his sharp, brittle edges.

In another world, maybe he lets Kate Bishop convince him to stay and to coach her into being the next Hawkeye; to look after the dog they’d rescued; to make a home in the tenement building whose residents are grateful for the removal of the Mafia. 

But not in this world.  In this world, he watches from the shadows in the week after he kills the Mob boss; he watches as the neighbourhood starts to rebuild; as the community begins to form in the wake of the Russian’s demise.

They have hope again, a future they can build.

Maybe this was what he’s meant to do now.

Take out the bad guys who Thanos left behind.

He tugs on Ronin’s mask and the katana sings in his hand.

o-O-o

He moves from country to country, never staying.  There is no rhyme or reason to his journey except one: to remove the evil Thanos had left behind.

He takes out warlords and tyrants.

_He watches Steve try to save lives a different way and knows he will never move on; can never move on._

He destroys a nest of Vipers.

_He almost gets caught by War Machine in Iraq._

He cuts off the drug tsars and the arms dealers.

_He ducks around a street corner in Rio just as Natasha gets out a car in front of the hotel where he’d stayed._

There are no prisoners; there is no mercy offered.

The whispers of the masked assassin begin to rise, and with each kill, each slice of the blade, Clint Barton disappears like dust drifting into the sky, and Ronin rises in his place. 

o-O-o

Returning to the Compound feels like a dream.

He takes Natasha’s hand; takes the hope she offers him; lets him tether himself to her again.

He discards Ronin’s mask.

Sets the katana aside.

He picks up his bow and arrows.

Being Hawkeye again feels wrong.

Being Clint again feels like he’s pretending to be someone he’s not.

He doesn’t think he’s the only one feeling a disconnect though. 

Seeing everyone else return feels surreal.

Apparently, it’s all Scott’s idea; time travel via the quantum realm.  The science makes Clint’s brain hurt.

Rocket and Nebula have returned to help.  Clint hadn’t been close to either of them; they’d been in space mostly during his time at the Compound.  He thinks the last time he’d seen them had been the christening of Tony’s kid.  

Tony is back.  He’s the one who has figured out how to make time travel work, but he’s clear that the goal is to bring back who they lost with the stones; not for them to erase the last five years.  Clint doesn’t blame him; he’s protecting his kid and Clint would do the same in his place.

Steve has his shield.  It’s as though Tony giving it to him has given Steve his mojo back.  Clint can’t help but feel a curdling sense of unworthiness in the renewed shining presence of Steve’s Captain America.  Steve's a good man; Clint isn't, not anymore.

Rhodes welcomes him back.  There’s a knowing wariness in Rhodes’ gaze but Clint doesn’t flinch away from it.  It’s good that someone knows who he has become.

Banner has merged with the Hulk.  Clint finds the new combined version simultaneously hilarious and weird.  He misses Banner.  He misses the Hulk.  He doesn’t know this new guy even if his calm acceptance of Clint helps Clint feel less like he’s standing on the outside.

Thor…Thor is a painful embodiment of all of their collective guilt and loss.

They need someone to do a test run.

Clint doesn’t have to think about it; he volunteers.  He’s going back five years to just before the Snap.  If it works…if it works…

Quantum time travel is a roller coaster ride multiplied by three thousand. 

He lands in the barn.

His head hurts.

His body has all over tingles.

He tries to catch his breath and staggers to his feet.

It’s the farm.

He’s at the farm.

His heart beats loudly.

OK, Clint tells himself briskly; he’s definitely moved in space. 

But the farm still exists in his time too; it’s covered in dustsheets and probably a layer of dust, the animals are all being taken care of by neighbours…but it’s there.  He’s never been able to bring himself to get rid of the last place he saw his family.

He’s going to have to go up to the house to confirm.

He steels himself and starts walking.

He gets to the porch and stops.

There’s a baseball glove on the floor.

Cooper and Nate had been playing baseball; they’d been wearing the gloves when the Snap had happened, when they’d Vanished…

And then he hears her: his daughter.

Lila.

The time travel GPS bracelet beeps and he knows he’s running out of time but he needs to see her, to talk with her…he calls out to her, lunges for the door and…

God.

He lands back on the time platform hard, still holding the baseball glove.

Natasha picks him up as Tony and the others hurry over.  Clint stares down at the glove he holds.

Hope blooms inside of him like a raging fire. 

They can time travel.

They can go to the past and retrieve the stones.  They can bring his family back.  They can bring _him_ back; the man who he was, who he wants to be again more than he’s ever wanted anything else: Clint Barton, husband and father.

Clint throws the glove to Tony.  “It worked.”

o-O-o

A mission with Natasha.

Flying in space.

It would be awesome under different circumstances.

Natasha and he work seamlessly together on the ship.  They prepare and walk out side by side.  There is a lightness in their banter; hope in each step.

Which is why Clint isn’t too surprised when the floating red guy throws a wrench in the plan. 

Clint knows it’s him who needs to make the sacrifice.  He’d given up; he’d become Ronin; become a mercenary with no mercy.  And OK, he’d focused on bad guys, but he’d taken their lives with violence and anger.  He knows who he has become.  This sacrifice…he can redeem himself.

Natasha makes a counter-argument; she’s held on, worked for this moment, for the chance to have everything back, to have their family back.  He hears everything she says and what she doesn’t say.  He knows when she talks of family its both the Avengers and their family with Laura and the kids.  She’s the kids’ godmother, their Aunty Nat.  Of course, she’s going to sacrifice herself to give them their father.

Clint can’t allow her to do it.

They fight and he wins.

He jumps.

She comes over the edge after him like an avenging angel, catches him and traps him to the wall with the grappling line.  He won’t let go of her though.

Can’t.

He won’t sacrifice her.

He’ll keep holding on.

Natasha doesn’t let him.

He cries out his anguish because he would never trade her for his family, never…

The world goes black.

He wakes up in a pool of water holding the soul stone.

A soul for a soul.

Natasha is gone.

He’s standing when he gets back but the landing feels even harder than the test run.  He can barely speak; barely see past his grief. 

“Clint, where’s Nat?”

o-O-o

The hour after they get back is quiet.

They end up on the jetty, staring out at the Hudson; the original Avengers line-up except for the missing Black Widow.  They’re trying to make sense of losing her, of a world without Natasha.

They can’t.

Thor tries to argue that they can bring her back; Clint doesn’t think it’s going to be that easy.

“She bet her life on that goddamn stone,” whispers Clint.

It’s Bruce who gets them focused again.  They need to complete the mission; they need to do it for her.  She’d sacrificed her life for them to have the opportunity to bring everybody back, and they have to make it worth it.

Clint stands beside Tony, arrow poised, and holds his breath as Banner slips on the improvised gauntlet. 

It’s terrifying. 

Bruce’s body is riddled with a rainbow of energy.  But Banner does it.  He takes the pain, and the power, and he snaps his fingers.

They move to help a downed Banner in the aftermath; his arm looks decimated.  Clint shivers to think what it would have done to any of the rest of them.

“Did it work?” Banner asks.

There’s a buzzing noise from the desk. 

Clint approaches it with his heart beating loudly enough he can’t hear anything else.  He looks at his phone with amazement.  Tony had asked to borrow it just before they’d time-jumped.  He thinks he knows why now.  Laura’s picture is there.  She’s calling him.

He answers the phone like he’s in a dream and hears her voice.

It’s Laura.

It’s…

The world explodes.

o-O-o

People will ask him later what the battle was like.

Clint can’t describe it.

It’s a blur of smoke and blood and fire…

He’s fighting for his life in an underground tunnel against alien creatures.

He’s watching Nebula shoot her past self to save him; to save everyone.

He’s standing with his friends, with an army of heroes, facing a vast alien horde.

He’s running across the debris of the Compound with the gauntlet. 

Clint passes the gauntlet to T’Challa and fights.

He’s sheltering under a wizard’s shield as hellfire rains down on them.

He watches as Carol takes out the space ship above them.

And he fights.

Bow and arrows.

Katana. 

Hands, fists and feet.

He fights with everything he has.

He’ll protect the Earth.

He’ll protect his family.

He won’t fail them.

Not again.

His katana flashes out and goes through dust.

The enemy shifts and fades away on the wind.

Everything is silent.

Everything is silent.

Iron Man is down.

Clint sinks to his knees.

It’s over.

o-O-o

Clint goes home.

He holds his family.

For the first time in five years he feels like himself; like he’s whole.

They go to Tony’s funeral; to the memorial Pepper organises at their lake house.  Tony’s daughter is still beautiful and Clint aches for the fact that she’ll grow up without her Dad.

He stands by the lake with Wanda and wishes Natasha could know that they’d done it; won the day; that her sacrifice had been worth it.  Wanda assures him she does; that they both do.  Vision is gone too, and she mourns him.  They comfort each other.

Tony.  Natasha.  Vision.

They’re gone, but the rest of them will live on; they have to live and make something of the world they have now; this strange world where half of them survived for five years, and half of them have lost five years.

He offers to go back with Steve, to return the stones to their rightful places in the timelines.  Steve shakes his head and tells him to stay with his family.

Clint doesn’t argue. 

He takes his family home; back to the farm. 

His alarm goes off the next morning.  Laura’s beside him and they cuddle in bed.  They get up and have breakfast with the kids.

Clint drinks in the sight of his family. 

Laura.

Cooper.

Lila.

Nate.

He won’t take his eyes off them again. 

Not for a second.

The End.


End file.
